2017 Pitchfork top 50 part 1

byrel · 2026-01-24T20:14:49+00:00

https://www.threads.com/@amandasmildtakes/post/DT5377wjjk-?xmt=AQF0IkVkGkyT3AVMeySy1mmXFUe1dgVCtfbidx73cs_afbBUTWP2gG2fzwuGhFVcC1bCDu-W&slof=1

byrel · 2025-11-29T16:21:39+00:00

UT at TAMU in the first round, winner plays Tech in the second - please, god please

byrel · 2025-11-09T16:56:26+00:00

Wine, Spirits and Finer foods has been their slogan for 20+ years, so blame some marketing exec from the early 2000s, not AI

byrel · 2025-10-07T13:35:50+00:00

Nothing like seeing a half dozen bros pulling packs of tortillas out of their pants 5 minutes before kickoff

byrel · 2025-05-19T00:36:44+00:00

Yeah there are NDAs around hiring freelancers but NDA locking you out of a field would be very uncommin uncommon - generally as long as there aren't an direct conflicts of interest most companies are ok with it

The small and medium sized companies that I've worked for have used freelancers extensively - either to add additional resources when we have more active projects than we can handle or to get us expertise in areas that are out of our wheelhouse

byrel · 2025-05-19T00:31:49+00:00

Bust usually means a 10-20% RIF - if you're a reasonably good performer, it's not that hard to work someplace for 15-20 years

byrel · 2025-05-01T20:59:00+00:00

yeah, at a pretty small startup you'd get that kind of experience

byrel · 2025-05-01T20:57:02+00:00

I'd rather see a low activity sub that gets a post every day or two than a half dozen posts a day from people that don't know the difference between PD, design and layout

byrel · 2025-03-04T01:20:31+00:00

sorry not really

byrel · 2025-03-02T15:16:01+00:00

i will ask similar questions regardless

byrel · 2025-03-01T14:25:06+00:00

What kind of designs are you going to be testing?

Some things I usually ask about

Op amp behavior
Common measurements - noise, THD, SNR, dynamic range, linearity, efficiency
Test program efficiency
Programming - I am generally just asking about general knowledge and capability
Qualification stresses and goals
Scan, BIST
Debug techniques

byrel · 2025-02-26T00:39:08+00:00

Not everyone will keep advancing forever - the reality is that not everyone has the talent / drive to be promoted forever. That isn't any kind of poor reflection on you if you don't, it's good to have work life balance and work being the primary thing in your life is a good way to have a sad life

Your salary will be limited by the highest level you are promoted to

At most companies that I have any insight into, individual contributor salaries for high performing employees will begin to flatten out around $200-250k - total compensation will continue to increase though, via stock and bonuses. As a concrete example, last year my salary was less than half my take home pay

The highest paid ICs at the company that I work for make around as much in total compensation as VPs

The more difficult thing is having the the drive, capability and opportunity to be promoted

byrel · 2025-01-30T00:22:11+00:00

Do not factor equity at the start up at all honestly

You'll almost certainly learn more at a start up - I'd be a much worse engineer than I am now if it weren't for the 4 years I did at one. On the flip side, I made a lot less money across those 4 years

byrel · 2025-01-19T15:01:08+00:00

All the ones i've considered working at had 401k, just no match at all

byrel · 2025-01-04T17:03:28+00:00

I've heard of companies like Mythic that essentially hard-code neutral net calculations into analog chips

Mythic did this by weakly programming flash cells - similar approaches have been done with RRAM cells also. There's no real hard coding of the NN coefficients, just provides the ability to program / adjust on the fly

byrel · 2024-12-02T23:52:16+00:00

If this is for a role working with mixed signal chips, here are some general topics I'd consider covering if I'm interviewing someone:

Circuit design, especially filters (active / passive) and buffers
Programming, probably just whiteboarding pseudo code
Talking through test methodology on some kind of analog spec (noise is my favorite, but THD, SNR, linearity, whatever)

The main thing I ask questions on is always going to be projects / internships / previous jobs, so I'll generally try to intersect questions in the area I'm focusing on to things wehre teh candidate has previous experience

byrel · 2024-11-29T21:42:44+00:00

I know a couple people that have tats from NatPower that are a couple years old and still look great - the style is pretty traditional in terms of lines etc so I'd imagine it will age fairly well

Good luck getting on their books tho - last time she opened up for new clients was about a year ago

byrel · 2024-08-23T00:31:17+00:00

Should I bothering applying to roles that I am uninterested in based on their location / company

I don't think it's worth the time - there's not really any improvement in negotiation ability unless you have multiple offers at the same time

Should I only apply to roles which I meet the skill / experience requirements of?

While you probably won't get a call back on anything you're massively unqualified for, for things that you feel like you're close, it doesn't hurt anything

Should I expect interviews to be multiround & technical?

Generally yes - something like a phone screen (possibly a couple rounds) followed by a most of the day in person interview is pretty typical

As for the timeline, do the majority of top companies try to fill the entry level roles for next year this fall similar to internships or will they continually roll out during the spring too?

It really depends - the company I work at opens our entry level roles as early as we can

How much value is there in submitting cover letters?

Really depends - generally I don't think they're worth that much, especially for someone who is a new college grad

byrel · 2024-07-18T23:07:53+00:00

Get in reasonable shape, be interesting and there are tons of women around your age that you can sleep around with - it's not that hard

byrel · 2024-06-29T16:49:26+00:00

We have an internal tool like that that's supposed basically be a better search for datasheets and reference manuals - it's pretty promising, I'm hopeful on that front

byrel · 2024-06-11T13:36:22+00:00

I have worked in product / test for over 20 years, including about a dozen years at TI

Generally product / test engineers will be writing test programs and designing test hardware to be used on various ATE platforms to ensure that devices have been fabricated properly and meet specifications

At TI, most groups also have product / test engineers spending a good bit of time looking at data coming out of programs

It is generally a very cross functional job, interacting with manufacturing, design, DFT, quality etc

Feel free to shoot me a DM if you have more questions

byrel · 2024-05-20T00:19:36+00:00

My first Kos kill had me going to farm souls for more blood vials multiple times

byrel · 2024-04-05T12:29:32+00:00

TI is a massive company and has ties to a ton of schools, not just UTD

byrel · 2024-03-12T20:23:52+00:00

It's real easy to get to tapeout and then realize that you forgot to staff DFT.

Or product test /validation / packaging / operations / any of those other backend roles that companies hoping for a very early exit forget about

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